BLACK PANTHER Adds Angela Bassett to the Cast

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Marvel Studios’ Black Panther movie already has an amazing cast lined up, and the studio has just signed another legendary actress to join the film. It’s official: Angela Bassett has been cast in Black Panther as Ramonda.

The announcement was made via Marvel.com, but Bassett’s role in the movie may not be quite as straightforward as the news implies. Marvel describes Ramonda as the mother of Black Panther/T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman). But in Marvel’s comic book universe, Ramonda was T’Challa’s stepmother and the second wife of the late King T’Chaka. Ramonda is also the mother of T’Challa’s half-sister, Shuri, who went on to become the Black Panther in the comics after T’Challa was badly injured.

It’s not clear if Shuri is in the film, but Ramonda could potentially add quite a bit of drama to the story. When she was introduced in 1989 by writer Christopher Priest, Ramonda was lost for years before T’Challa discovered that she was the prisoner of a white supremacist and rescued her from South Africa. Priest later gave Ramonda a larger role during the first major storyline of his Black Panther ongoing series in which she seemingly supported a coup d’etat against her stepson while feigning loyalty to his enemies. What made that story so interesting is that it wasn’t clear if T’Challa was also being played by his stepmother. That duplicitous aspect of Ramonda’s character could be very compelling if it plays out on screen.

In addition to Bassett and Boseman, the Black Panther cast includes Michael B. Jordan, Forest Whitaker, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Daniel Kaluuya, Winston Duke, and Florence Kasumba. The film won’t be released until February 16, 2018, and we’re really eager to see what director Ryan Coogler and his cast bring to the Marvel Cinematic Universe!

Are you excited to see Bassett in the Black Panther movie? Let us know in the comment section below!